A podcast all about Japanese cartoons and comics as discussed by three self-proclaimed experts in the world of anime and manga! Plus anime news / reviews, coverage of classic anime, hentai / yaoi, and much, much more. Updated every week. We hope.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

After over a month of no new recordings, we have returned, but our attempt to resume normal releases hit some roadblocks. This week, Daryl's finally talking about the Sanrio film Sea Prince and the Fire Child, Gerald discusses the Gainax television series Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, and Clarissa goes nuts over MPD Psycho.

The total length of this episode ended up being a little over THREE, not four, hours. We have therefore split everything up into two files that are in fact NOT of equal length: one file containing the news and the Nadia review, and the other file containing everything else.

Due to a power outage, the project for unknown parts of the first portion of the show got corrupted. It is very likely that there may be sections of obviously missing dialogue, or that at some point, the dialogue between Daryl and everyone else will shift out of phase.

Supplemental links will come later since this all got "finished" around 3:45 AM and I got about three hours of sleep. In the meantime, marvel at the wonders of this picture:

The following timecodes are for everything other than the news segment, which is devoted almost entirely to Anime Expo discussion, and the Nadia review.

Introduction (0:00 - 23:51)Daryl has finished moving into his new home and has set up his computer in a large tiled room, thus giving him a constant echo for the foreseeable future from this point on until he stops being lazy and moves his computer into one of the rooms with carpet. We start things off by concluding our 009-1 Volume 1 contest (the winner has actually already responded and received their prize) and beginning a newer contest that is probably going to be semi-ongoing. Listen for the details! As far as emails go, Daryl is enlightened about the secret connection between Shojo Beat and Kazuo Koike, plus we brainstorm for titles of a very important anime genre, that of "things containing frowny-faced men with big eyebrows." We neglected to mention very many frowny faced women with big bushy eyebrows, but we'll blame Clarissa for forgetting about Dorothy Catalonia. Also, Gerald is officially on THE LIST for disliking Fullmetal Alchemist. Finally, just like how junk mail saved Kevin McDonald's life, the AWO saves lives as well!

Promo: Destroy All Podcasts DX (23:51 - 24:37)Even though Jeremy is a dirty, dirty film school graduate (and as such harbors many wrong opinions because opinions can in fact be objectively wrong if they're contrary to our opinions) who gets mad tail yet still claims to be a nerd, we are willing to forgive his repeated transgressions. For you see, now that Daryl suggested he try using a basic diplo-sniper build, he is finally playing the original Fallout. Granted, he is doing the "cheap" evil route of just killing most everyone he encounters because he didn't know how to access the Pip-Boy or his character stats and was somehow unaware that he needed to be searching for a water chip since he's too used to the current age of videogames and their in-game tutorials that exist in lieu of reading the instruction manual, but one of these days he'll come around.

o/~ I'm so in love with you / I want to wad you up into my life / Let's roll up to be / A single star in the sky o/~

Fine, so it's not really like Katamari Damacy at all. Still, the B.O.T. level here is something indeed.

Daryl reviews this classic feature film from Sanrio, the dub of which is long out of print. Bootleg copies can be had on eBay for about $15-$20, but just download the dual audio DVD rip for free. Sanrio doesn't seem to be wanting to release this one on DVD in the US anyway, so this is the ONLY way that people in America can see this film in English without giving money to bootleggers. I guess now that this and Ringing Bell are out of the way, all that remains is Unico...

UPDATE: It turns out that there is a dual audio Region 2 DVD rip of the movie with English subtitles. The torrent link I used has been changed to reflect this new link.

Promo: Happy House of Hentai (53:58 - 54:20)What better way to cap off a Sanrio discussion than by endorsing podcasts containing "Hello Kitty"? To be more accurate, this show should probably be renamed "Lord Kaos Gives Medical Advice Even Though He Is Not a Doctor," but that's far too long a URL to type.

Review: MPD Psycho Volume 1 (54:20 - 1:07:57)Clarissa reviews this manga from the wonderful mind that brought us The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. This is a violence epic about people with multiple personalities possibly performing serialized killings upon other serial killers a la Dexter. Only this was made first. Right about now is when people are probably going to be experiencing Death Note withdrawal, so perhaps this can be your new fix.

Promo: Anime Pulse (1:07:57 - 1:08:28)Daryl would pester Ichigo and company far more if they enabled user comments on their posts, since he's trying not to register for any more forums if he can help it. Dear anime podcasters: don't you WANT Daryl to comment on your episodes? Then please enable comments on your blog posts that don't require registration. You probably want to throw in a word verification to avoid getting spammed into oblivion, as Dave and Joel have now realized.

Closing (1:08:28 - 1:15:29)For the next few weeks, we are going to be BRINGING THE PAIN down on you suckers. Gerald's closing out his Megazone 23 reviews by tackling Megazone 23 The Third (or as the Japanese say it, "Megazone 23 The Saddle"), Clarissa prescribes a cure for insomnia by reviewing Birth (as well as the Streamline dub of the same OAV entitled Planet Busters!), and Daryl in the face of this onslaught has opted to cut everyone a break and throw you guys a bone (or rather, a stick) by reviewing Demon City Shinjuku.

This is going to get worse before it gets better, and we might need to bring Neil Nadelman in soon to get in on this. Here's timecodes for the second half.

Let's News! (0:00 - 1:08:19)We spend pretty much all of this time talking about the various developments that emerged from Anime Expo 2007. The Anime News Network con report is pretty much all you need as far as links go.

Promo: Otaku USA Magazine (1:08:19 - 1:10:11)Mike Dent from R5 Central throws down this shockingly audible endorsement of a magazine headed up by TV's Patrick Macias with anime (and soon, some manga) reviews by us crazy yokels. If you think Daryl and Clarissa are lazy as far as getting this podcast released, you should see us when we're trying to come up with ideas for anime reviews!

Review: Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (1:10:11 - 1:58:56)Gerald takes a very long time (over 45 minutes) to talk about what is probably the most uneven show, in terms of quality, to ever come out of anime. The only anime out there to feature FRENCH PEOPLE, Miyazaki, getting high on mushroom, planting another sun in the sky, the KKK, and the most selfish bitch anime has ever created. HOWEVER, she was fighting for second place (with Belldandy of all people) as the greatest female character of all time for a good part of the 90's. Witness how we talk so long about the show and focus on the Island Episodes so much that there's no way anyone listening would want to watch this show!

Both a new AWO and Lather's Blather in the same night/morning! It's like the podcast gods are smiling on me! Seriously, though, it's awesome to see a new AWO. Your podcast, along with a few others, helped me traverse the long miles between Lubbock and Houston (over 1000 miles, round trip) as my wife and I moved in June. Thanks.

Ugh I need to listen to the entire podcast before posting. All ADV Bricks are out of print, and have been for quite some time now. Your best bet for picking up the Nadia bricks is buying them for the cheap second hand off of Amazon, E-Bay, or Second Spin.

I can't believe I heard Waterford Lakes referenced in a podcast. I fucking hate that parking lot. I would swear it's the parking lot from Hell, but even Satan wouldn't place his subjects at the mercy of Florida parking lot designers.

Probably one of AWO's greatest epsiodes. Nice guys. It was really a pleasure to hear you guys talk about Nadia. And kudos for releasing enough content to make up for the past couple of gaps between all the parts of episode 54.

"See, here's what you've got to know about Nadia: she's not just a horrible, selfish bitch...she's a horrible, selfish bitch VEGAN."

I think my favorite omake is #6, with the mod Marie and hippie King. #7, the investigative report on Nadia, foreshadowed a few techniques we'd see in KareKano, and of course you can't beat the character charm of #8.

You'll be glad to know that we mentioned you by name this episode, Chris. :) Of course, since the last time I checked you didn't have a copy of Sea Prince and the Fire Child, so get on that torrent I linked to!

The fact that there is STILL not a US release when the Region 2 DVD is dual audio with perfect English subtitles is mind-boggling. All of the localization work has already been done, and Hello Kitty is now officially ADV's top selling title, beating out Evangelion and Robotech. One would think releasing these movies to be the next logical step, right?

The fact that there is STILL not a US release when the Region 2 DVD is dual audio with perfect English subtitles is mind-boggling.

Damn! I wish I'd known that earlier. Too late for this year's Otakon, but maybe next year...

Speaking of frowny eyebrow guys, how about Star of the Giants? Or Tezuka's Zero Man pilot, where a cute little boy with a squirrel tail became a frowny eyebrow guy because the network wanted something closer to Star of the Giants?

You'll be glad to know that we mentioned you by name this episode, Chris. :)

Thanks! (so far I started with "#55a" and already found a lot on Nadia I didn't think about before, I still haven't saw passed the four episodes of that one myself, but the Streamline dub was one of those I often wanted to shake my head whether to say the voice were OK or not, despite the 20-year old Jean, at least they had 'actors' as opposed to ADV using children for those kids). I might have to check out those "Island Episodes" just to see how low they get.

Of course, since the last time I checked you didn't have a copy of Sea Prince and the Fire Child, so get on that torrent I linked to!

Already have that!

Wonder what would it take for you to do "Winds of Change" (despite it being produced mostly in the US anyway, Sanrio knew how to waste it's money on frivolous crap, TMS"s Little Nemo movie was triumph compared to that).

The fact that there is STILL not a US release when the Region 2 DVD is dual audio with perfect English subtitles is mind-boggling. All of the localization work has already been done, and Hello Kitty is now officially ADV's top selling title, beating out Evangelion and Robotech. One would think releasing these movies to be the next logical step, right?

Nani? That DVD you have was a fan effort, using the Japanese R2 disc that just has the English audio included as well as "dubtitles" from what I was told (I also know the guy who did that, though I'd rather leave him out of this. I only wish I was that clever myself if I ever get around to authoring DVD's.http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=PCBE-52022

If anything, it's a step up from just getting it in the raw and flying blind on it unless you didn't have a memory of watching the movie as a tyke and know the basic premise. Sanrio might probably still have the English track filed away someplace but they're still thick-headed to go check.

Speaking of Unico earlier, noticed an Italian private tracker I bothered signing up for that had a copy of Unico listed as an AVI with both Japanese and Italian language tracks. For a while I thought perhaps they took the AVI I made and re-edited it for their tastes, though watching the vid I now have, they apparently used some sort of smoothing filter from VirtualDub to replace the grainy nature of said master from the R2 DVD (still it looks close to the copy I had unleashed earlier). Again, Sanrio (or Tezuka Pro) should look into releaseing this here.

Watching these companies go necrophilic with their licensing is a strange, strange thing. Some of the choices are completely psychedelic (I would never have known Lost Universe even existed if I hadn't bought stupid quantities of Animage back in the late 90s) and a Love Hina re-release is gambling that there is still a large buying base that didn't (A) buy the Bandai release (B) buy one of the MANY bootlegged versions or (C) download the damn thing.

It's an unsettling trend.

I wonder if the American companies aren't going to have a massive shakeup in their business models. As tiny as you guys say the market has become, I can't say I see it turning around. I've run into college kids who are completely up on the last three years of TV anime but own fewer than five DVDs. I have to imagine that the really young kids are even less invested in the American industry, subsisting entirely on digisubs and scans. Is there any way at all to make money off of these guys?

I wish there was some group talking about the market. We've got nothing but Apter mags talking anime right now; we need a Torch.

I wish there was some group talking about the market. We've got nothing but Apter mags talking anime right now; we need a Torch.

For what it's worth, Otaku USA is probably more of a F4W~! experience. But as we mentioned, I think there's definitely a way to make money off of the people who just download everything, and that's the merchandising. Of course, as we mentioned in a bonus episode, a large amount of available anime-related merchandise is bootlegged stuff too.

Also, there are far too many people writing in to tell us what their favorite anime is without telling us WHY that is their favorite anime. We'll have to stress this point in the next episode. Also, we probably should have asked people to include their mailing address.

Loved the Nadia review. I always thought it was weird with the sudden change of focus during the "island episodes" I even remember the EXACT moment it happened. Jean and Nadia had not reached the island yet. They were still in the escape pod when Jean engulfs a large amount of water of Looney Toons proportions. It was a gigantic "HUH?!?!" moment for me.

About the AX news...the thing that surprised me the most isn't what was licenced, but what wasn't. There were 2 big shows I expected to get licenced (Ouran High School Host Club and Code Geass), but neither of them did. Damn!

Anyway, since I've never seen Sea Prince or MPD Psycho, I'll just comment on Nadia. Excellent review Gerald, you covered all the important things that needed to be covered. Even if the review is 45 minutes long, that's cool. There's always a lot to talk about when reviewing an early Gainax show.

The next show sounds absolutely terrible...in the absolute best way possible. Can't wait.

PS: Daryl, I listened in your Sea Prince review for any out of place audio. There was only one thing that sounded out of place, but of course because I'm a terrible lazy person, I don't know exactly where it is. I'll find it and send you an email or something later.

Like the mentioning of the old Voltron figure with the attached metal lions. I don't think my mom ever did that, but I probably lost the lions before that happened, so my childhood was a little happier!

Aside from Sirius no Densetsu, there was another film that took on the Romeo & Juliet tragedy underwater, though without the tragedy, and done by one pink slipped Disney animator on his home computer...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_&_Juliet:_Sealed_with_a_Kisshttp://www.romeoandjulietfilm.com/

Sanrio, what is there to say of them that isn't already explained before (couldn't they be more like Bandai and screw up their changes here).

Shintaro Tsuji is the founder of Sanrio way back in 1960, and somehow had a hand in creating the story for Sirirus whilest also getting listed as "Executive Producer" on all these movies. And yes, the animation in this would be one of those that would confuse us into thinking it isn't "anime" due to it's very Disney/Western look. The director of this film is Masami Hata, whom also directed "Ringing Bell", and co-directed TMS's "Little Nemo" and all those other things mentioned before (Initial D and Ping Pong Club come to mind).

Nice to see parallels to Katamari Damacey. At laest they don't roll up the junk in the sea to complete a stage (set to pretty cool music).

The music in this was performed by the NHK Symphony Orchestra, explaining it's bombastic-ness (wonder how much Tsuji paid to get them on this).

Of course the subversion slingshot couldn't be shipped to Malta either (for those who seen Corn Dog 7). :)

Actually, the God of Wind was killed by Oceanus who stabbed him in the eye with a sword I think. When Sirius comes to the area he finds his friend Bibble (Chiku in Japanese) stranded, sill holding onto the neckless that the eye was on, and has to watch as he dies in his hands with much pathos.

Once Malta turns into the queen, I couldn't help but find it amusing how a 8 year old boy could get a hard-on for that body! Of course those drawings during the end credits are pretty much self-explanatory.

Again, pretty good movie that lives up to my expectations fully.

The subtitles on that MKV file you have I think is "dubtitles" as I said before, but with some of the names or certain phrases changed to stay more to the Japanese naming, but it's not an accurate translation. Funny I hadn't thought about the lip-flapping in this film (but since I usually stay to watching it dubbed it probably didn't affected my enjoyment). Of course if Sanrio wanted to, they could've tried paying more to actually getting the dialogue pre-recorded just to see if they could try lip-synching the animation years prior to Akira doing so.

The Disney Musicals of the 90's was what steered me away from what Disney had done before that point. Of course the Disney features often get many different viewers or critiques over the years and eras covered (like the "neo-classics of the 50's or the "xerox" style of the 60's and 70's and the dead period of the 80's).

Nadia... Black People... OK (really, I hadn't noticed that). Funny I never heard of the Negro Village either, I learned something new today!

Being reminded someone mentioned the Jim Terry/Kidpix dub of Time Bokan he saw (TimeFighters), and I had to set the record straight about that, as he didn't know the show originated in the 70's and thought it was an 'original' movie out on tape in the 80's. Really, there's not a day that goes by when I feel I have to clue in the noobs!

Speaking of Time Bokan, there the 90's OVA that CPM bothered to license you guys could talk about (since most who bought that still didn't get it). :-)

Being reminded of a row of baddies in the opening to Astro Boy who wore KKK-like hats too!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwymQHaOEvw

Heh, being reminded NHK also aired Future Boy Conan and The Mysterious Cities of Gold. Perhaps they wanted another Conan with Nadia.

I think that cartoon Daryl was thinking of was "Canned Feud", where Sylvester gets locked in the house while the human folks left town for a couple weeks and the only sustenance is a cupboard filled with cans, but no can opener, as the mouse decided to f__k with his head.

For a 'kids' show', they do get away with drawing King with his 'package' intact, usually that would be the further from any person's mind to consider hinting to an animal's sexuality in such simple ways.

Being reminded of once reading how a fansubber that subbed Nadia in the 90's made a nice little comment on thanking Carl Macek for not getting passed the 8 episodes he dubbed. Funny if the plan Macek had was trying to get this on TV back then (even if in syndication, I do wonder how much of this show would've been softened due to the content in several places. Of course those "Island Episodes" would really kill it for viewers if it was given a once-a-week broadcast rather than five-days-a-week format (though it could die quicky either way). Would've been nice if there had been a release Gainax did where you got just the 30 episodes on their own and that would work well for anyone to view without being subjected to what sounds like every Korean anime knock-off I've seen so far!

The DVD menu for the first disc I bought years ago was pretty bad. You'd think ADV would also have the rights to use the other BGM tracks or even the ED, "Yes, I will..." for every other page.

So seeing that the Nadia dvds are OOP, I've decided to pick them up. Are the subtitles on the Nadia dvds that gigantic font like on the first run of ADV's Eva dvds? That was so irritating. I can't seem to find the bricks of the show anywhere for a reasonable price so I'll be getting the individual discs. Bummer though, cuz I'm really running out of space!

*Breaks out the first brick and pops in DVD*"EEEEEEEEEEEE!"Language....."EEEEEEEEE!"Subtitles......"EEEEEEEEE!"

Okay, maybe not. But damn did I love the series when I first watched it. I even liked some of the island episodes to some extent. Yes, they were wastes of time, but I didn't think they were unwatchable. Maybe it's because I had to watch all of Kiddy Grade for something I had to write before I marathoned Nadia and my standards of unwatchable had temporarily shifted. I'm a sucker for action/adventures, and despite how bitchy Nadia gets or how the pacing dragged out, the lively action and fun with added dabbles of serious drama always came through for me. And I cannot agree more with how terrific the final episodes are. I'm not a person who gasps a lot, and one moment in the final episodes just blindsided me in shock. It REALLY REALLY is worth trudging through the low points of the series to see the ending.

But the musical episode.... I still can't hear correctly after all the damage it did to my ears. Oh, and if someone wnats to come up to Nebraska and say hi sometime, we can go out and play frisbee golf with the Nadia movie. It gets good drift if you hit the wind right.

I bought MPD Psycho a few days before this episode came out. Personally, I think it was worth getting.

You were mentioning Mail and Dark Horse and it got me thinking. I work in a bookstore and I know we have two copies of Mail (Volume 1 and 3, I think). Unless they sold out very quickly, we don't have any copies of MPD psycho. I buy most of my comics (Japanese or American) at a comic book store, they only have Mail volume 3 and I bought their only copy of MPD psycho. The situation is the same for most Dark Horse titles. Most stores I go at have a very few or no volumes of their series and once they are sold out, they don't really get more. I don't know if this is different in the States but do you know why that is? Is it because they are not popular or mainstream enough?

About Sea prince and the fire child, I'll probably check it out. Judging by the pictures in the show notes it does look nice. It's not usually the kind of story I go for but the review did get me curious about it.

I haven't exactly finished listening to the podcast yet. I still have the Nadia review to listen to. I've never heard of this show before and, judging by the different comments, maybe that's a good thing... (That doesn't mean I won't listen to the review but I guess I'll have to be prepared for it)

Another great show as always, and I'm looking forward to the next show because of the review of Demon City Shinjuku. I just saw it today (because of Daryl mentioning it in the podcast) and it was ... interesting. "The unbridled power of short Mexicans on rocket powered roller-skates" indeed.

I'm the contest winner in the OP (and also a goon, hence the use of a horrible catchphrase there), and I was going to complain about Daryl mispronouncing my Podcast Pickle username, but I can't quite manage to since I chose to begin it with a consonant cluster that occurs in no human language. Oh well.

Cheers guys, I'm loving 009-1. And thank you for the ninja postage, it arrived in record time.

I decided to listen to the whole podcast before commenting. I listened the the first chunk right off the bat, but I didn't have time to listen until the second until today. Then it turns out I only really have comments on the non-news, non-Nadia bit. Crazy!

First off, in response to the person who emailed about the insanity of thinking that ninjas and samurai have anything to do with each other. That is in truth crazy as hell. I guess the editors of Shoujo Beat felt sorry for the poor saps who like Tail of the Moon and wanted to extend a work of unvarnished excellence. I mean I don't remember whether I was in middle or early high school when I read a few issues of that early release of Lone Wolf and Cub. Frankly, it's hard for me to imagine what a person who doesn't like Lone Wolf and Cub would be like. Probably a cheerleader or something. Those bitches ruin everything.

In terms of MPD Psycho, I read the scans for a while and enjoyed the hell out of them up until a major plot shift. At this point the conspiracy storyline stopped being ominous and mutated into a situation where the ultimate villain seemed to have some sort of "HA! I knew you would do that machine!" to pull of the various machinations of the conspiracy. At the time, I felt exhausted by this and gave up. I could see satisfying resolutions to the story (Something along the lines of American Psycho for example.

I do think that it's important to discard any actual knowledge of psychology when watching a Japanese psycho-thriller.

Sea Prince and the Fire Child is a story in the tradition of Ovid. According to Mr. Tinkler, my high school Latin teacher, Ovid' most important lesson is Love Kills. Remember that the next time you're getting ready to refuse to attend that omiai.

Ah hell, I'm going to talk about the second part anyway. I've never seen Nadia. I came into fandom in a hotbed of anti-Gainax sentiment, so it took me a while to seek out their works. It's funny because Nadia is a genre which normally appeals to me tremendously. I guess it just always felt like too much work. It does seem crazy that all these young whippersnappers haven't even heard of this show. Bizarre.

As a fellow bookstore worker, I have something I've wanted to mention for a while. I work in a national chain. Of the dozen or so stores in my area, every one has a slightly different selection of titles. If the store near you doesn't have the book you want, ask to special order it. When you special order titles, it sends a message that there's a market for this title in your market. Stores can't afford to keep ordering niche titles if they're not sure they'll sell. Incidentally, I'm the special orders department of my particular store.

Finally, I'm going to bring up my other fandom for a minute. I've been reading romance novels since middle school, and I recently read a book which featured a young yakuza punk named Reno who'd dyed his hair red and wore colored contacts. My initial reaction was hope that this was a coincidence and that an auther whose work I've enjoyed for many years wasn't biting of Final Fantasy 7. Then the hero mentions his cousin renamed himself after a character from a video game. My inital reaction was astonishment. There was an otaku in my romance novel. I ended up emailing the author and received confirmation that he's an otaku (a yakuza who can totally kill you, but an otaku all the same) and that he'll have his own book sometime in the next few years. She's been writing romances for 30 years. I'm astonished and delighted.

1. Can anyone confirm that the Sirius no Densetsu DVD from Japan has English audio and/or dubtitles? Yes, I know that you've got a torrent there, but the Japanese DVD is in print and CDJapan has it for 1500 yen, which is stupid cheap for such a visual treat. Plus, it will give me an excuse to finally order that Hustle Punch DVD.

2. How is AWO produced? Daryl, you mention that there might be synching problems due to file corruption. Are you using ProTools and setting up Gerald and Clarissa's Skype calls as separate inputs, or something?

Fantastic episode as usual. I'm quivering in anticipation at all the HARD-ON jokes coming with Gerald's MZ23 Part 3 review. (don't forget to mention that it was released in separate episodes, resulting in utterly confusing titles like MEGAZONE 23 PART 3 PART 2.)

1. Back when some of us were first getting episodes in the bad ol' VHS trading days, we got all hung up on the island episodes, too. An amiable fella from Japan by the name of Dan Kanemitsu showed up at a Chicago SF con to share some inside scuttlebutt with us about it. According to Dan, a studio fire destroyed most of the production materials and forced the show into a sort of stasis period while things could be reconstructed. NHK's arbitrary extension of the series sounds a bit more likely to me.

2. I was thinking to myself several years ago that one of the import companies ought to set up a subscription service for TV episodes so we wouldn't risk missing any of them. I suggested this to Matt Greenfield at an AWA party and his eyes got big and he said "that's a really good idea!" I'm not claiming credit or anything, but it's intersting to me that ADV's subscription service started in the following year. Unfortunately, it didn't make tapes easier to get. I had to place many, many phone calls to ADV customer service to point out that they hadn't sent me the latest tape yet. It was as if my subscription was being deleted from the system every month.

3. Last year I transferred all those ADV VHS tapes to DVD and found that one of them--a volume that fell right in the middle of the island episode arc--was wiped clean. No apparent reason. It had always been stored with all the other volumes under the same conditions, but the rest of them were fine. I'm thinking it was suicide. Now I couldn't watch the full island arc even if I wanted to.

4. ADV released the movie on VHS right after the series wrapped. I had never seen it, so I kept it in my subscription queue. Wish I could still say I'd never seen it...

Sea Prince and the Fire Child is a story in the tradition of Ovid. According to Mr. Tinkler, my high school Latin teacher, Ovid' most important lesson is Love Kills. Remember that the next time you're getting ready to refuse to attend that omiai.

Being reminded, Sanrio did just that a couple years before Sirius, when throughout the 70's, they set up shop in southern California, hired some Golden Age animators, and tried cobbling out a movie feature several Ovid stores set to music. Originally meant to be the rock equivalent to Fantasia under the name "Metamorphoses", the finished films was re-edited, given a disco soundtrack and narration with Peter Istinov under the name "Winds of Change". The film was a bomb at the box office in the US, a Japanese-dubbed edition (giving characters voiceovers despite not moving their mouths) was released subsequently in Japan under the name "Orpheus of the Stars". It was still a pretty disjointed picture for it's use of child-like characters playing the parts of characters in Ovid's tales.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamorphoses_(film)

Mike Toole said...

1. Can anyone confirm that the Sirius no Densetsu DVD from Japan has English audio and/or dubtitles? Yes, I know that you've got a torrent there, but the Japanese DVD is in print and CDJapan has it for 1500 yen, which is stupid cheap for such a visual treat. Plus, it will give me an excuse to finally order that Hustle Punch DVD.

No, the Japanese DVD as far as I'm aware doesn't have an English track. This .mkv is a fan effort in syncing the original American VHS release to the Japanese visuals. I know the guy who originally did this as a DVD-video he placed on a private tracker I belong at, and I thought he did a nice job despite having 'dubtitles'.

But yeah, those Sanrio DVD's are extremely cheap for movies you'd expect the typical otaku-level pricing on. Not every film on these DVD's tend to be as good as I want them to (Winds of Change isn't even in widescreen). Just don't expect English language audio/subtitles to be on these, though Sanrio couldn't done it anyway if they know we'd be enticed to buy 'em anyway (or find someone in the US to bother licensing these to).

If I get around to it, I want to see if I can sync the audio of my VHS copy of "The Mouse and His Child" to their DVD once I get that one. :-)

Neil loves "Nadia and the Secret of Blue Water". I think he worked on it. We hate it. Nadia is a horrible person, and we really think Grandis Granva should have ended up with Captain Nemo and not that Blonde Bimbo Electra. Dude's like twice her age and stuff! It's one of those shows we kind of throw our hands up and say WTF about. To me and Mike, the Secret of Blue Water is the Blue Water from the Airplane Toilet.

You know...as has been the case more than once on AWO, looking back, I find that I preferred the Streamline dub...even though I thought they were going to dub this in English! ENGLISH MOTHERFUCKER! DO YOU SPEAK IT?!

Utena was the has way wasn't it. Some episodes in the show you could show on Saturday morning cartoons. Other episodes you can only show on cable i.e. Black Rose episodes for example (Very dark episodes about the human condition. I love Utena allot, but some of the episodes did feel like that has well.

Master Shake, unsatisfied with the fact that just this episode was three hours long, demanded that we do ANOTHER episode that was nearly three hours long. Unfortunately, since Gerald is headed to Otakon and I have not yet even begun to edit the next episode, we opted to invade Otaku Generation.

Otaku Generation Show # 110 is their Otakon preparation guide, but I didn't let the fact that I'm not going to be at Otakon stop me at all, no sir.

This marks my second impromptu appearance on OG, as I was also present for Show # 91. So for all of you who just need to hear me screaming about stuff, you can get some of it there in the meantime since the three of us are going to be crunched as far as Otaku USA deadlines and Anime Festival Orlando preparation is concerned for the next week or two.

Maybe this gets mentioned in the podcast -I am three episodes behind at the moment, but you guys are next on the playlist!- but the thing to do with Nadia is A) skip the damn island episodes, and B) SKIP THE FINAL EPISODE!!!

Watch the next to last one where they go all-out and shoot stuff and reuse the old Yamato sound effects. It's a rocking episode. So watch that one and just stop. Instead of actually watching the finale, imagine one in your head. Pretty much no matter WHAT you imagine, it will be better than what they actually did for the ending.

Anyway, I actually liked Yoshino Takamori as Nadia and Noriko Hidaka as Jean. Noriko's done some awesome songs -though NOT so much on this show- and I just totally dig Takamori's voice. It makes me melt nicely.

Never seen the video but the music is worth getting. Lots of homages to the music Hisaishi did for Tecnopolice and especially Mospeada. The song "Shade, the sacred sword" is basically the Mospeada open slightly reworked. Good stuff.

Okay, so I had another comment on this episode, but I decide to consult with my panel of experts before talking out of my ass. On hearing that the big concert at Expo was delayed for 2 hours, I was disgusted. If they want to become an industry show, they'd better get their acts together. A delay like this is possibly the result of recalcitrant guests, but it seems more likely that it was the product of poor planning. Somebody underestimated set-up times, technical problems multiply, and magically a two-hour delay appears in your schedule. I desperately want to speculate more about this, but since I haven't seen Anime Expo's schedule, I'll leave that part alone.

I do think it's laughable to try to set yourself up as an industry leader when you have such a poor handle on logistics.

Additionally, anonymous to anonymous I'm all aquiver at the manliness of your anonymous invocations of irony and your anonymous quotations of quotations of quotations. I hope you're not an anonymous girl. Then I would have been wrong to call your anonymity manly. I guess I am wrong to call you manly. What you are is a hero. Like Condor Joe, you are a straight shooter.

Re: Hellsing Ultimate dub - it's fantastic. I used to live in UK and I can't stand the fake English accents so often used... but these were actually really well done. I especially loved Victoria Harwood's Integra, and Katherine Gray's Victoria Seras was pretty entertaining too (although she's actually American - very good job still).

The anonymous poster I was speaking to is not the anonymous who signs his messages -C. That person is a model of civility and, I suspect, has the discernment not to use the word ironic so carelessly. I was responding to the anonymous poster who is not a model of civility. As I myself am not.

AX has, from my outsider's POV, always sought that position, to be for anime what VSDA is for the home video business, or E3 for Games, Gencon, SDCC, and so on. It's never really gotten there. For some odd reason the Industry itself has resisted, instead tending to focus on SDCC (generally) as their Big Event. I assume because the Eyes of Hollywood have lately gathered there, and the Industry still wants at some level to be recognized as 'Important' and 'legit' and not the niche product it is.

And of course now the New York anime con is getting a push, because that allows studios to cozy up to Diamond more....

On Nadia:

I echo Tim, the story 'back in the day' was that there was this huge, terrible fire that took out all manner of finished footage and scripts and stuff at Gainex, thus 'forcing' them to toss together a batch of 'off story' episodes to placehold until they could pick up the pieces and get back to the 'real' story.

Which, frankly, always sounded like so much horse doody, knowing *something* about the long production line that is even one episode. It's not like a live show that could 'wing it' for a few weeks...

But I don't think the problem was NHK demanding new episodes out of the blue either. That also sounds bogus, given the reality of animation production.

No, I suspect the problem with the existance of the Island episodes rest on Anno's shoulders as he had a mental hiccup that kept shifting the focus of the story. I mean, think about it. At the start, Gargoyle was just this guy who, like Robur the Air Pirate, wanted to become the Master of the World. It was clear he had huge resources, and access to powerful people, and the concept seemed to be he was using bits and fragments of Atlantian technology to leapfrog the tech level and science of the time. Take his giant airship, totally within the tech of the 19th century but with just a little more. Semi-auto rifles for his army when CARTRIGES were a recent invention and the bolt action single shot rifle was the bleeding edge tech. His Garfish submarines...

Then suddenly it's all Atlantis, and all the stuff is from Space, and Where the HELL did he get those goofy 3-armed flying ships?

Meanwhile Nemo is taking the backstory from Latitude Zero almost wholesale...except NO, his ship was REALLY a spaceship from the past!

And there were Giants in the Earth....

Bah. Big-Little book of Von Daneken, and toss in some Yamato at the end to make the otaku giggle...

The author is Anne Stuart, and the character's first appearance is in the book Blue Ice. He's going to appear as a secondary character in a book that's due out this fall. He'll be the hero of a book that is not yet written.

What I want to know is if the Lost Universe re-release will contain original version of the infamous yashigani episode. If it doesn't, fuck that, that's about the only reason I'd even care about the stupid thing.